Antonio Zampolli : 1937-2003

The first matter to report is one of great sadness - the tragic death of Professor Antonio Zampolli. Antonio was one of the main instigators of the Text Encoding Initiative, a key figure in raising funds for the project, and an important guiding influence throughout the project and during its transition from project to Consortium.

An obituary was written by Michael Sperberg-McQueen for the TEI-L discussion list, and this and other obituary notices and information about the life of Professor Zampolli have been published on the TEI Consortium web site, and also on the web site of the Association for Literary and Linguistic Computing, of which Antonio was President.

The Board will consider at its forthcoming meeting what memorials may be appropriate, and will consult with other interested institutions, including Antonio's Institute in Pisa, and the ALLC. Suggestions from members of the Consortium are welcome, and may be made to any Board member.

Retiring Chair

The Chair elected by the Board for 2003, John Unsworth, resigned at the end of June 2003, on his departure from the University of Virginia to take up the post of Dean of the School of Library and Information Sciences at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. His position on the Board had been that of representative of the University of Virginia, one of the TEI Host institutions. The University of Virginia nominated Daniel Pitti as its representative to replace John on the Board.

The Board would like to record its great appreciation, and the debt of gratitude owed by all members and subscribers of the Consortium, for the substantial investment of time and energy made by John over the lengthy period leading up to the founding of the Consortium, and his tireless work in helping to ensure that it was established on a sound basis. John has agreed to be a candidate in the elections for the Board which will take place at the Members Meeting.

Since I held the position of Vice Chair, the Board asked me to take on the role of Acting Chair from the time of John's resignation until the end of 2003. I have to report that my 2-year term comes to an end in December 2003, and I will not be a candidate for the Board elections. The Board will therefore be appointing a new Chair to take office in January 2004. My department will continue to be a member of the Consortium, and I will continue to promote the TEI to the best of my abilities within the ALLC and elsewhere.

John was also a Board representative on the TEI Council, and its Chair. Following John's resignation, the Board appointed Christian Wittern as Chair of the Council, and we would like to record our appreciation for his willingness to take on this role. The work of the Council is, of course, central to the role and value of the TEI.

There is one other transition I should report. Our Executive Director, Tone Merete Bruvik, took maternity leave from 1 January to 30 September 2003. During this period, her place was taken by an Acting Executive Director, Alois Pichler. We are delighted to welcome back Tone Merete, the Board would like to record its great appreciation for the work of Alois during his time working for the Consortium.

Membership & funding

The income from membership fees continues to be the major concern for the Consortium. As you will have seen in the Treasurer's financial reports, the level of membership income has been relatively stable at a little over 100,000 dollars per annum, and it appears we will be very close to achieving this level again in 2003.

There are two key problems for the Consortium at this subscription level. The first is to do with the level of activity it makes possible. Anticipating this level of income, the Board made some difficult decisions and reduced the planned budget for 2003 by a substantial amount. As part of this, the Board has had no face-to-face meeting between the Chicago and Nancy Members meetings, and the Council has had only one face-to-face meeting, business being otherwise conducted by email and by conference calls. The scope for providing support for work groups is also much diminished.

The second key problem is that the Host institutions continue to subsidise the Consortium to an unsustainable degree. We owe a great deal to the commitment and generosity of the Hosts, but we must recognise that in every case they face their own financial pressures, and cannot continue to privilege the TEI over other commitments. The work carried out by the Hosts on behalf of the Consortium is detailed in their reports, and I would like to record the appreciation of the Board - in particular its non-Host members! - for significant practical and financial contributions made by the Host institutions. I'm sure the Members would echo this appreciation.

Funding is an issue in which all Consortium members need to be actively involved. It is in all our interests to be part of a thriving and active community, and there are opportunities for all of us to promote the work of the TEI and the mutual benefits, as well as substantial long term benefits to scholarly work, of Consortium membership.

The Board has tried to take a strategic view of membership funding, and in particular has made approaches to funding bodies to ask that annual membership of the TEI should be encouraged, or even required, for projects involving the mark-up of textual materials. There has been a promisingly positive initial response in the UK, but no response as yet to similar approaches in the US. The Board will initiate approaches of this kind to other funding agencies in Europe. Consortium members, however, are strongly urged to encourage colleagues to include project membership of the TEI in budgets at the proposal stage wherever this is appropriate. Important as institutional memberships are to the TEI, the potential importance and value of department and project membership should not be overlooked.

A number of external funding approaches were made during the past year, in particular an EU proposal in which the Acting Executive Director and other colleagues invested a considerable amount of time. The Board regrets very much that none of these approaches was successful. The Board will continue to seek project and other funding opportunities, and will welcome any suggestions, leads or contacts that can be offered by Members.

TEI Council and Work Groups

The work of the TEI Council and its formally constituted Work Groups is detailed in its report. Rather than repeat what is already reported there, let me rather record the appreciation of the Board, and I am sure of the membership as a whole, for the contribution made by the Council members and by the members of the Work Groups. Apart from the Editors, none of the Council or Work Group members receives any remuneration for their TEI work. Theirs is indeed a labour of scholarly love.

It must be recognised, however, that although the Editors receive some remuneration for their TEI work, there is a substantial imbalance between the level of remuneration and the amount of work carried out by them. The imbalance was touched on earlier in discussing the contribution of the Host institutions, but we should acknowledge here the role of the Editors in providing the intellectual and practical 'glue' across the TEI - between the Board, the Council and the Work Groups - that makes its functioning possible.

Special Interest Groups

These were discussed at the Members Meeting in Chicago in November 2002, following which the Board decided to proceed with the idea. It was launched during the course of 2003, and the response from Consortium members has been extremely active and enthusiastic. In order to accommodate feedback from all the SIGs that have been proposed and set up, they have been arranged into SIX groups for break-out meetings during the Members Meeting. From the Board's point of view, this response has been extremely encouraging, offering opportunities for more members to be actively engaged in the work of the Consortium, and providing a platform for wider promotion of the TEI.

Training

Training continues to be a major activity of the TEI, and is rightly viewed by members as one of the key benefits of membership. It is also an activity in which many TEI members are involved as teachers. The Council's report includes a section on training, which reflects well on the Council and Board members involved in developing and co-ordinating the Consortium's training agenda, as well as other members involved in the teaching. At the same time, there may be opportunities for using training as a promotional and revenue-generating activity which we are failing to take advantage of. The Board has been including Training in the budget as part of the income stream, albeit a relatively small part. Thus far we have not succeeded in meeting even these modest targets.

Officers

Finally I would like to record my appreciation for the work of the Board's officers - Julia Flanders as Acting Vice-Chair, Geoffrey Rockwell as Secretary, and Claus Huitfeldt as Treasurer.